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joestillwell
Reviews
A Girl's Folly (1917)
Where the movies flourish.
"A Girl's Folly" is a sort of half-comedy, half-mockumentary look at the motion picture business of the mid-1910's. We get a glimpse of life at an early movie studio, where we experience assembly of a set, running through a scene, handling of adoring movie fanatics, even lunch at the commissary. We are also privy to little known cinematic facts - for example, did you know that "Frequently, 'movie' actors do not know the plot of the picture in which they are working"?
The plot of this film in essence is movie star Kenneth Driscoll's discovery and romancing of a budding young starlet whom he discovers while shooting on location in the country. I believe the 30-minute version I watched was abridged, included on the same tape with Cecil B. De Mille's "The Cheat." It is a very credible film - an easy watch with a large cast of extras. As a bonus it includes some of best-illustrated captions I have ever seen accompanying a silent movie.
Peter Voss, der Millionendieb (1932)
A good, light movie
This is a very early French musical which was supposed to have inspired the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera. I liked this one better. The plot revolves around a horribly in debt young man who wins the lottery but then has difficulty in producing the winning ticket. His best friend, the women in his life, and the city's seedy criminal underbelly are all trying to find the ticket as well, for their own reasons. The main character is hilariously following around throughout the movie by a pack of his creditors who seemingly have nothing better to do - one of whom is an older Max Schreck (of Nosferatu fame), in what I believe is his only other film appearance available for viewing on video.